


A Soft Sort of Domesticity

by Tartha



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:15:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22602316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tartha/pseuds/Tartha
Summary: Spoilers for relationship status post episode 100.Being close, a short sweet moment of personal reflection. Either Night Vale changes you into a community member, or it lets you realize your potential as a community member: in the end it doesn't really matter which.
Relationships: Carlos/Cecil Palmer
Kudos: 26





	A Soft Sort of Domesticity

Carlos sat on the couch, one hand holding his phone aloft as he read an article that he suspected was not nearly as thoroughly peer-reviewed as it should have been. Afterall, it had somehow made it into Night Vale without most of the specifics blacked out and/or didn’t seem to be in the process of turning his phone into a weepy mess of useless ooze.  
  
Cecil had slipped off the couch so that he could lean his head into Carlos’s lap, and appeared to be dozing. Carlos's free hand threaded through his husband’s soft hair. Idly, Carlos gently skritched at Cecil’s scalp, enjoying the domesticity of the moment.  
  
Carlos hummed softly to himself and scrolled. The principles behind the article seemed relatively sound, in fact, he suspected that with minimal tweaking he could get the converter to work, but what did you do with all the extra salt? There was also the problem of overheating, and sizing, because the article seemed to assume that these could be mass-produced-- _Where would you even get the funding for this kind of thing?_ Not to mention that the processing of waste was a pipe-dream at best: unless you could somehow introduce an entire ecosystem and then speed up the basic process of decomposition. He’d have to talk to the tarantulas. Theraphos PhD was the best taphonomy specialist he’d ever met.  
  
Cecil made a discontent rumble. It took a moment for Carlos to realize that, in his mental distraction, his hand had stilled. Cecil reached up and impatiently tapped Carlos’s hand. Carlos chuckled and returned to gently massaging Cecil’s scalp.   
  
A handful of minutes later his hand stilled again. _Then_ he dropped his phone onto his chest with a hollow thud. He swallowed a groan and took a deep, steadying, breath. _I didn't even--!  
  
_Carlos viciously cut off the uncontrolled thought, covered his face with both his hands, and tried to stave off the rapidly approaching hysterical laughter that was threatening to bubble up and out of his chest. He hadn't lasted this long in Night Vale by breaking down every time he stumbled on something improbable. It was just slightly more terrifying whenever the improbability was _him_.  
  
Cecil made the same small noise from earlier and, when Carlos didn’t immediately pick up where he’d left off running his hand through Cecil's hair, turned around to look up at the scientist with an adorable pout.   
  
“Carlos?”  
  
Carlos let his breath out in a juddery almost-laugh and peaked through his fingers. Evidently, he was holding it together better than he thought, because Cecil stared silently for a moment and then pointed to his own head and said, “Help.”  
  
The demand, both adorable _and_ annoying, scared the threatening hysterics away. Cecil was good at that. Carlos rolled his eyes and returned to running his hand through his husband’s hair. For a moment they continued to make eye contact and Carlos was struck by how lucky--how absolutely blessed--he was to have this in his life: this moment, this man, this ease.  
  
Cecil, appeased by the petting, turned, made a happy noise somewhere between a hum and a rumble, and snuggled down against his husband. A moment longer, and his voice drifted up with an affected nonchalance, “What’s the matter?”  
  
With a rueful smile, Carlos shook his head, “I just spent forty-five minutes designing a piece of science fiction.”  
  
“You’ve done that before.”  
  
Carlos pondered this statement for a moment and had to admit that, due to the demands and needs of Night Vale, he _had_ created a few gadgets that--to an untrained eye--might appear to be technology straight out of science fiction. He hummed and nodded but said, “Yes, but never… I’ve never read a _science fiction fan-theory_ and thought it was an article of genuine scientific study.”  
  
“If ‘significantly advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology,’ I don’t see why dreams of the future aren’t _also_ indistinguishable from science.”  
  
It took a moment to parse this, and when he did, Carlos laughed, “I don’t think that’s how that saying goes.”  
  
Cecil made that small back-of-the-throat noise that meant he was both charmed and exasperated with Carlos’s stubborn refusal to acclimate to Night Vale; it was the distilled version of his chiding eyeroll which accompanied an exasperated exclamation of, _‘Mountains._ ’ He didn’t even shake his head this time (although that may have been due to him not wishing to dislodge Carlos), “Lovely husband, that is how it goes _here_.”  
  
Carlos had the inkling of a suspicion that sometime in his first year in Night Vale, he had stopped practicing science and started practicing _Science!_ Perhaps all scientists were mad here. Afterall, mountains _didn’t_ exist inside of Night Vale. And who could verify that the rest of the world still existed outside of Night Vale? Who could verify that the rest of the world existed outside of his living room? Outside of his hand tangled in Cecil’s hair and his mind filled with the practical schematics for a Stillsuit. He hummed in gentle agreement.  
  
Cecil reached up, gently gripped Carlos’s wrist, and pulled down his palm to rest against Cecil’s cheek. After a quiet moment, he turned his head to kiss the center of Carlos’s palm, and then insistently pushed his husband’s hand back to the top of his head.  
  
_Well, they_ did _live in a desert. Couldn’t hurt to have a Stillsuit_.   
  
Building one could wait until Cecil got up. Carlos let his eyes shut and idly planned how he’d go about making a ‘dream of the future’ into ‘science of the present.’ Cecil was warm against him and he felt an unbidden smile tug at his features. He might as well embrace being a 'mad scientist' if it meant embracing everything else in his life.

**Author's Note:**

> Was working on something long, involved, and violent and then suddenly I was writing this?? /honest confusion


End file.
